


Just a Little Unwell

by NewEyes



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:12:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewEyes/pseuds/NewEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why isn't he here? Everyone was supposed to be here an hour ago?"</p><p>"Don't worry Red, I'm sure he'll be along shortly," Sara grinned, as she was led away to a private room with Caitlin.</p><p>"Chill Barry," Cisco walked over to his computer. "We've checked out everybody else, so far no permanent health problems from the time travel."</p><p>For an anonymous prompter on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Unwell

"Why isn't he here? Everyone was supposed to be here an hour ago?"

"Don't worry Red, I'm sure he'll be along shortly." Sarah grinned as she was led away to a private room with Caitlin.

"Chill Barry," Cisco walked over to his computer. "We've checked out everybody else, so far no permanent health problems from the time travel."

"But we agreed a time..."

"Miss me Barry?" Barry spun around and spotted Len standing in the doorway.

"Where have you been? Everyone else was here hours ago."

"Personal business," Len sauntered into the room, the same way he always did. But Barry could see his eyes darting around, memorizing and taking everything in. Nervous. "So, medical checkup?"

"Yeah. Caitlin's doing them. Done most of the team, they all arrived on time." Barry gave Len a pointed look. "Sara's in now, the others have already left, you'll have to wait for her to finish up."

"Wonderful. So looking forward to it." Len was sarcastic.

"Could've been done sooner, if you'd been on time."

Len chuckled. "You're never on time, for someone who keeps secrets for a living you're astonishingly bad at lying and covering for yourself."

"But everybody expects that from me, I'm chronically late. But not you. You've never been late for anything the entire time I've known you."

"Well, there's a first time for everything." Len sat down and slouched the chair next to Cisco. Barry paused, waiting for Len to explain. Nothing.

"Fine, don't tell me."

"Alright then." Len propped his feet up on the counter and leant back in his chair. Barry shook his head and went next door to look at data from some experiments he'd been running. But every so often he would look through the glass walls at Len, just keeping an eye on him. What he saw wasn't good. Oh, Len was obviously trying to appear casual, doing something on his phone, but the more time passed, the tenser he got. Cisco was engrossed in his work and didn't notice, but Barry could tell.

Something was off here.

Fifteen minutes later Caitlin came back into the room with Sarah.

"Hey Sara!" Barry said. "Everything good?"

"Yep," she grinned. "According to Caitlin, I'm in perfect shape."

"Yes, well, we'll need to get everyone's bloods back but so far it looks there have been no permanent ill effects from the time travel."

"Fab. Well, I'm going to head back to Star City then, see you guys around," Sarah waved at them as she walked past.

"Bye," Barry said. Len just nodded.

"Alright, your turn Len." Caitlin turned towards Len, who nodded stiffly. He followed Caitlin as they walked out of the cortex into the dark corridor beyond. Barry debated what to do for a second, before he flashed out after them.

"Sorry Caitlin, could I have a word with Len quickly?"

"Huh?" Caitlin looked confused, but she nodded and smiled at Barry anyway. "Sure. I'll just go on ahead. Straight down the hall, first room on the left when you're done," she told Len, and walked off.

"Len."

"Barry."

"Is everything alright?"

"Fine."

"It's just you seem a little...tense."

"Everything is fine, Scarlet. Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?" Len stood straight up, stiff, arms crossed. Barry stepped forward. Now that he was closer he could see a light flush on Len's face.

"Are you warm?"

"I've been sitting in the parka for twenty minutes waiting around."

"So...you're not ill then?"

"No," Len raised his eyebrows. "Is that all?"

"Well....if you're sure you're okay."

"Fantastic, thank you." Len turned away and followed Caitlin.

Barry could see his arms shaking slightly.

*

Barry retreated back to the main room, feeling defeated. Well, if Len didn't want to share he couldn't exactly force it. Part of him was a little worried though. Yes, none of the others had experienced any problems and Rip had told them there were no known side effects, but still... Barry tried to put it aside and focus on his data. He tried to avoid thinking too much about why he was so concerned about Len, when he hadn't been about the others. Because honestly, he was a scientist, he could admit that the foundations of his argument weren't exactly strong. Len was late? So what? Plenty of people are late all the time and the medical checkups weren't exactly a particularly time sensitive task. Len acting oddly? The man's a criminal. There are plenty of reasons why he might be a little on edge. Reasons that have nothing to do with superheroing and everything to do with the fact that he fights people, steals things, and makes lots of enemies. Really not much to base an argument on.

And yes, Barry might have a tiny crush the man. Tiny. Really. Nothing to make a big thing about. And if he would like Len to open up to him more, to be more relaxed when they're together? Well, that's just because he's the Flash, a superhero, it's the right thing to do. Not because he really enjoys every moment he spends near Len and his muscled tattooed arms....

Barry mentally pulled himself back to the task at hand again. Data. Experiments. Science. Chemicals. Chemistry. Attraction. Len...

Damn it!

*

Caitlin and Len came back to the cortex together.

"How did it go Caitlin?" Barry walked over to them.

"Everything seems fine. Looks like there are probably no permanent side effects from the time travel."

"Wonderful. Well, thank you all for such a lovely time," Len drawled. "But places to be, people to rob, things to steal, you know how it is.

"The hard life of a criminal," Cisco spun around in his chair to face Len. "Bye, Cold."

"Be seeing you Cisco. Barry." Len turned and met his eyes briefly, but then they flickered away off to the side. "Caitlin." Len turned on his heel quickly and left the lab.

Barry waited until they could no longer hear footsteps in the hall.

"So...is everything really okay?" he asked Caitlin.

"Yes, seems to be," she replied. Caitlin went to sit next to Cisco and Barry headed over to his computer in the next room.

He slumped down in front of it and sighed. On a whim he tuned into the camera feeds and watched Len leave the building, he walked through the corridors and took the elevator to the empty lobby. Barry sighed, obviously his suspicions had been wrong. But then...Len didn't leave the building.

Instead he took a right, entering the men's restroom. Huh. There were no camera feeds in the bathrooms so Barry kept the feed on the foyer, waiting for Len to come out. But fifteen minutes passed and no Captain Cold. Barry made his excuses to Cisco and Caitlin and then flashed downstairs. He walked across the foyer at normal speed, rehearsing in his mind what he would say, the excuses he would make. 'Oh, sorry, didn't know you were still here, just needed to use the bathroom.' 'Why am I not using the one upstairs?' Oh well, I'd just flashed out to the precinct for a minute, and I was coming back in when I....' Barry shook his head to clear it, and then entered the bathroom.

Whatever he'd expected, it had not been this.

As soon as he walked into the room, Barry could smell vomit. There was only one cubicle occupied, and Barry could hear an unpleasant retching sound coming from behind the door. His heart plunged to the bottom of his stomach. Len quieted, obviously trying to hold back.

"Len?" he spoke quietly into the room.

"Barry?" he heard the voice coming from behind the door.

"What...you're not okay, what's going on?"

"It's nothing." Len said.

"Oh come on," Barry was exasperated. "It's clearly not. I let you get away with it earlier but you can't hide from me now. Something's wrong."

"Really, you don't have to worry about it," Len managed to get out, in between breaths.

Barry rolled his eyes. "Just so you know, I'm rolling my eyes so hard at you right now."

"Duly noted."

"So...are you going to open this door?" Barry asked, rapping his hand on the door of the stall.

Barry could hear Len let out a shaky breath. "Why do I get the feeling you're not going to take no for an answer kid?"

"Sorry, but I'm not going to leave you like this, no." He could hear Len sigh, and then the man slowly opened the door.

Wow. Len really did look terrible. There was a flush in his face, his arms and legs were shaking, and his breathing was coming a lot quicker than it normally did.

"You're ill? From the time travel?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell us, why did you try to hide it?"

"I'm not ill from the time travel," Len said.

"Oh, obviously. You're just the picture of health, nothing wrong with you at all," he said, gesturing to Len. "Never better, I'm sure."

"It's really not related to the time travel," Len huffed out between breaths. "Can you accept that. And leave? I wouldn't put people at risk by hiding that, you and Star Labs would probably the best people to try and fix any problems. Trust me, it's not related."

Barry frowned. His instinct was to trust Len, his gut said the man was telling the truth. But even if it was something else...Barry couldn't let it go.

"If you're sick...just a normal illness, we can still help you. You shouldn't be walking around by yourself if you have a fever and you're ill, you should have just told us instead of hiding it."

Len sighed, and then closed his eyes. He looked tired and resigned.

"It's not that. I'm not ill," he said, looking at some point over Barry's shoulder, not meeting his eyes.

"Um...." Barry looked Len up and down obviously. Len sighed.

"I'm not ill," he repeated. "I have a...phobia." Len looked as if he would rather be anywhere but here.

Barry was blindsided. "What?"

"Latrophobia," Len still wasn't meeting Barry's eyes. He was slumped against the wall of the stall, looking far from the imposing confident figure that Barry was used to.

"So...." Barry didn't know the word.

"Fear of doctors, kid."

Oh. That explained, rather a lot actually.

"So, you were reluctant to be here because...you were afraid?" The concept seemed foreign to Barry. "Right", he muttered. "And you didn't tell anybody because... you didn't want to appear weak in front of the team."

"It's fine." Len said. "I can tough it out. I've been through many worse things, physically, fuck, even mentally. It's completely irrational. If anybody knew...any of the Rogues knew, or...just anybody, I'd be a laughing stock. Thankfully it doesn't actually come up much. If I get shot I can just patch it up myself or someone else will, without us going to an actual doctor's surgery."

"That's...really not good."

"I'm on the wrong side of the law, it is the way it is. I'm fine. Really." Len met Barry's eyes. "I just need a few minutes to calm down, I'll be out of your way as soon as possible."

Barry shook his head. "If you think I'm leaving you like this you obviously don't know me at all." He moved closer and put his hand on Len's arm. "Do you think you're going to be sick again?"

Len shook his head.

"Good. I can flash you somewhere more comfortable than the Star Labs bathroom then."

"Not the cortex," Len was insistent. "Cisco...Caitlin, don't get anyone else involved."

"I can understand that," he said, and then scooped Len up into his arms. There really weren't many places Barry could take him. He didn't know Len's address, no getting Caitlin and Cisco involved, and taking him by Joe's would be a really bad idea. His own flat it was then. Len already knew where he lived, it would only take basic of research to find the information out and he was sure Len had already researched him in detail. So he wasn't really giving anything away.

Home it was then. He flashed in and deposited Len on the couch after removing the man's parka and shoes. Still at super speed he grabbed a bottle of water, buttered a few slices of bread, and then went back to the living room putting them on the table near Len. He sat down in the armchair facing Len, and slipped back into normal speed.

"What..." Len started. "Oh." Barry saw him spot the water, obviously for him, and he reached out and took a sip.

"Thank you." It was a genuine thank you.

"Not a problem. We're at my flat. You can rest for a bit, and then when you feel ready you can leave and go home. But spend at least twenty minutes resting first," he said sternly.

"Sir, yes sir," Len said dryly, and closed his eyes. He let out a slow breath, breathing calming. "You won't tell anyone about this?"

"No, of course not," Barry said. "It's your secret. Though...it might be useful if you let some people know, you're fighting all the time now, you never know when you might end up in a hospital. It would be useful for someone to know.

"You know, don't you?"

Barry thought about. "Well...yes. I'm not going to be there most of the time though. But don't worry, I'll keep your secret as long as you want me to. I have a secret identity, don't I?"

Len snorted. "Because you're so wonderful at that."

"Hey..."

"All of your friends and family know. And most of your ex girlfriends."

"Well..."

"And the Reverse Flash. And Zoom. And me. Your enemies all know too."

"Come on...most of those only know because they time travel. Dimension hop, whatever. Not really my fault."

Len smiled and shook his head. "Excuses, excuses." The smile slowly dropped from his face, and he looked like he was thinking hard. "But I trust you. You're not that sort of man who would sell my secret."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Lots of questions were running through Barry's head but he bit them back. Len was recovering, he probably didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't really Barry's place. But...so many questions. He was so lost in his thought that when he finally looked back at Len the man was watching him, smirking and amused. He looked a lot better than he had ten minutes ago.

"Yes," Len said.

"What?"

"I can see the questions flying around your head, like little birds. Yes, I've had this phobia for a long time, ever since I was a kid." Barry took that as an invitation to ask Len things.

"What happened when you needed to go to the doctor as a kid?" he asked.

"Oh, I pretty much never went to the doctor as a kid," Len said. "Expensive, and father didn't have the insurance. And didn't want to waste money that he could be spending on booze. The only time I did go I was severely ill and had to go to hospital for a few days. It wasn't a very good hospital. When you're dirty, in pain, alone, because of course Dad wouldn't take time off work, surrounded by other kids who are screaming and in pain, well, it really did nothing to alleviate the problem."

"Oh, sorry," Barry didn't really know what to say to that. He'd never really had many phobias, all of the doctors he'd been to had been the sort that smiled, ruffled his hair, and gave him colorful stickers for being good.

"Like I said, it's manageable, don't worry. I can hold everything in for a little while, but then the physical reaction...it just happens, whether I want it to or not and my mind just needs a little time to go nuts and deal with it." Len looked away.

"Thank you for sharing that with me," Barry said.

"I bet you think of me differently now," Len said, self depreciatingly. Barry started to say no, but that wasn't quite truthful.

"Yes," he admitted. "But not in a bad way. It's just another piece of you that I didn't know about before, something that makes you who you are. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Really?" Len raised his eyebrows. "So...if you get nightmares about, say, Zoom, a man who hurt, humiliated and crippled you, you share them with everybody?" Len was astonishingly perceptive.

Barry shook his head. "You're right, no, I don't," he admitted. "But I should. They _are_ nothing to be ashamed of. It's hard, I never said it was easy. And as much as people like to think of me as some sort of perfect person, I'm not." Barry met Len's gaze from across the room. "I struggle too." Len was sitting up now, bread and butter finished. Their eyes locked for a few seconds and then Barry looked away.

"Well, thank you for your hospitality," Len said as he stood up.

"Don't worry about it."

"Looks like I owe you one."

"You don't. But....well, a free favor from Captain Cold's not something I'm going to turn down," Barry smiled and walked over to the front door with Len.

Len smirked at him. "Be seeing you around, kid."

*

3 Months Later

Barry was lying in the hospital bed, feeling very sorry for himself. Joe and the others had managed to swing him a private room but he chafed at just lying around all day, no super speed. Healing as a normal person was soooo slooooow. He shifted slightly, felt the stabbing pain in his ribs again and grimaced. He was so bored. Suddenly he heard a tapping sound at his window. He looked across and saw Captain Cold perched outside. As Barry watched, astonished, the man opened the window and climbed inside Barry's room.

"What..." Barry spluttered..."Why are you climbing the side of the building?"

"Easier than sneaking past the guards and going through the hospital," Len said, as if that explained everything.

"I mean, what are you doing here?" Barry asked.

"You...I saw you go down, no speed. They carted you off here pretty quickly and I couldn't exactly stick around and ask the cops what'd happened to you. I just wanted...you know, just wondered if you were okay." Len rattled off the last part quickly, almost at super speed himself.

"But you hate doctors, hospitals." Barry was concerned. "Will you be okay?"

"Just five minutes," Len said. "I'm not ill, not getting examined. I waited until there were no doctors in your room. It's worth it." He paused. "I thought you might be dead and I...I just really needed to know." Len moved closer to the bed and put his hand on Barry's arm. "That you were okay."

Barry nodded. "Healing slow, but healing all the same."

"Good," Len looked relived. They both fell silent, and Barry was suddenly very aware of Len's hand touching him. Len looked like he was too, eyes flickering down to the hand and then up to Barry's face. Barry licked his lips, and Len's eyes immediately focused on them. He looked up to meet Barry's eyes, an unspoken question in them.

"If I'm reading this wrong, then I apologize," he said, and then Captain Cold leant in and they were kissing. Barry sighed into the kiss and Len's tongue slipped into his mouth. He felt sparks go through his body everywhere they touched, he wanted to bring his hands up, wrap them around Len. His neck, his arms.... his ass. But...ribs. Damn it. He didn't want it to end though so he tried to stay still, tried to put everything he was feeling into the slow brush of their lips. After a while Len pulled back, looking slightly dazed.

"Wow," Barry said, stunned. Len smiled and looked smug. After a few seconds, he seemed to remember where he was though, and tensed slightly.

"Right Scarlet, better be going," he said, walking towards the window.

"Right." Barry said. He couldn't help it, his eyes fell to Len's ass as he was walking away. Man, why was healing so slow! He wanted to do....everything.

Len climbed out of the window and then looked back at Barry, as if he knew exactly what Barry had been thinking.

"When you get better...you should give me a call." Len looked confident, but Barry heard the touch of doubt in his voice.

"I will," Barry said, and Len's face lit up.

"Fantastic," he said. Len clipped himself onto the hooks he'd attached to the window and Barry craned his head as the man started rappelling down the building. Suddenly the door to his room opened, and Joe was standing there with a smile.

"Feeling okay Barry? Bored yet?" he asked.

"No," Barry said. "Not bored at all."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hit 100 followers for the first time on my personal blog http://xxxneweyesxxx.tumblr.com/post/137769604580/100-followers#notes. Still open for prompts if anyone else is interested.
> 
> For an anonymous follower: coldflash, the Legends come for Star Labs for med checks to make sure time traveling isn't having any adverse affects. Barry is anxiously waiting for Len, who is late... Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> My tumblr: http://xxxneweyesxxx.tumblr.com/


End file.
